Containers at the Adminstration Building at the National Arboretum

Spectacular {the word I really want here is flamboyant, it's a more accurate word, but....it's not a word you can just throw around. Oh well, we'll go with spectacular} large mixed containers are among my favorite things in the summer garden. The rain has stopped, at least temporarily, and grass is turning brown, trees and shrubs are being ingested by insects and disfigured by fungi, but these containers are just coming into their prime. The tropical plants need a month of unbearable heat and humidity before they relax and behave like they were in their jungle homelands. Annuals like that same month to get going at maximum speed.

One of the reasons containers work so well is that in a finite space it's possible to provide the soil, water, and fertilizer that they need to reach their peak. As good as the soil in your garden may be, it almost surely doesn't have the pore space that good container soil does. And as scrupulous as you are about watering, it is a lot easier to keep a pot watered than your beds. The same with fertilizer; walk around once a week with a watering can of Miracle-Gro and you are on top of it.

Containers are fun to make, and since they grow so quickly in the heat, they're fun to watch too, and they're beautiful. If there is a downside, it's that they can be expensive. At the Arboretum, we propagate quantities of plants to create all the containers we grow, but when you go to the Nursery, be prepared to spend a little money. Using some of your houseplants and or wintering over tuberous plants dormant (gladioli, cannas, gingers, tuberoses, etc.) can give you more and bigger material for less money. I don't think theres a formula for creating a "great container" but my ex post facto analysis reveals that good containers are fully planted, have a variety of textures, and....well, from there you can go a lot of directions and succeed. Come to the Arboretum and check out Bradley Evan's containers at the Admistration Building environs, the Herb Garden, and the Friendship Garden. They will amaze you, introduce you to some new plants (I guarantee), and maybe provide some inspiration for future creations.

Would you rather live to a ripe old age or die in ecstasy?

Insects are a great part of summer. Some insects anyway. The nighttime chorus of Katydids and their allies is one of the defining elements of the season. Fireflies are as magical to me now as they were when I was a child. Grasshoppers have always been one of those insects that I didn't have any qualms about touching. On the other hand...I have always been a bit squeamish about crickets, despite their widespread popularity. Their numbers swell, or at least the number of adult individuals, swells as summer progresses until it becomes impossible to disturb tall grasses against a wall without rousting a handful of crickets. I like the noise they make so long as they are outside.

Mantids are the best though. Big and odd-looking, they are fierce predators, quick and voracious. Their egg cases, each with up to several hundred eggs, are sold to gardeners so the hatchlings can eat up bad insects in the garden, but more and more research suggests that they are so nondiscriminatory in their diet that they do as much harm eating beneficial insects as they do good eating pests. I have not done quantitative research, but it is my clear impression that they favor members of the Witch Hazel family for depositing their egg cases though I have seen them on just about every sort of woody plant. Monday on the Group Project we found this mantis in a spruce. It was one of two we saw in the same tree; the other was bicolored brown and green. You begin to see a lot of them this time of year. Everyone, women at least, loves their sexual technique; the female, once mounted, reaches backwards and devours her mate from the front to back presumably timing it so that what's left of him finishes its job before she finishes eating him. Timing is important in sexual relations.